Another two-fer: Fuddrucker's and Nuyo with the girls plus Dolphins at night...

Sometime during the break, I took out TC and KDD once more...

Dessert would be decided by the girls, lunch by me (and agreed upon by the teens)....

Donut Factory, the parklet at Caffe Calabria, another Bunny Kitty mural, and Yog-Art

We drove a few blocks north on 30th and reparked across from Sicilian Thing...

Across the ways are the La Boheme condos. The small white building is Santos Market, a tiny ethnic market in the heart of North Park. In this business corner is Donut Factory.

Return to Indulge, plus Yog-Art and Mariposa revisits

After we enjoyed our rock-centrically named sandwiches from the  awesome Classic Rock Sandwich Shoppe, TC and I walked a little bit around the block to check out some of the street art...

I also wanted to check if that tiny gourmet food shop was open...

Return to Yog-Art

Now it was still quite "early" in the evening, perhaps around 6:45 or 7 pm'ish...TC wanted frozen yogurt and remembered that place we went to earlier this year...

For homebodies like us, it was kind of nice being out on a Friday night. I think we should make it a regular thing!

I had designs on another place for my dessert, but this stop was strictly for TC and Bert...

Yog-Art

Right across the street from the dinosaur mural is another row of shops.

I had a coupon for the yogurt place next to Ramzees (a mix of Meditteranean/Mexican food).

Korean Kitchen Tofu & Galbi and Nuyo

Bert had the day off and we originally wanted to go to Spanish Landing to check out the building of the San Salvador, which will be a replica of the one used by Portuguese explore, Joao Rodrigues Cabrilho. Instead, we watched the new animated Dreamworks flick, "Rise of the Guardians" (ehhhh). The sun came out later that afternoon and we went for a late lunch...

at the Vons shopping center near Telegraph and the 805...

Better late than never...

Lunch didn't seem complete without dessert and I had one place in mind.

But first some coffee using a super old "e-cup" certificate given to me by Kirk...

Noodles 'n yogurt

Well, would you looka here now...no more Yokoz!

The former site of the once popular Chamorro joint which had since gone downhill (waaaay downhill) the past few years is now going to be a new sushi place called "iSushi"! Hmmmm, did they get that from "iCarly"?

This is the last bday food post for TC....we do love to stretch out our bday celebrations in the CC household!

Return to La Crepe Fraiche

Hey now...one dessert place down.

One more to go!

Dessert 'n shirts 'n stuff...

After TC's dance performance, we went home to relax. We didn't go out to dinner like we normally have done in the past since we grazed throughout the afternoon with the merienda at the Parol Festival. So, we relaxed and waited until Bert came home from helping clean up...

As a reward for her effort, we promised to take TC out for dessert and Nuyo was her choice...

Pink Berry - Fashion Valley

Everyone split up after lunch except for me and MFH. We stopped by Sephora so she could look for a perfume she ran out of (it was not there since it was seasonal). Then we stopped by a few stores but mainly to window shop.

I haven't been to Fashion Valley in awhile but I noticed that the foodcourt seating area is now covered! Very nice! I also noticed that D'Lush was gone and in it's place was Pinkberry...

Tutti Frutti and snacks

[Update - This place is now closed as of 5/2012]

Sometime last week I had to run a few errands with TC. We rarely go out on a weeknight so this was a special treat...

We were also quite lucky the girl working at Tutti Frutti let us use this coupon...

La Crepe Fraiche

Welcome to Manila Mesa!

This is the corner of Scranton and Mira Mesa Blvd...otherwise known as traffic hell during rush hour! CAB, TC and I were headed over to the Sorrento Food Court for dessert...

NuYo - Telegraph Canyon

Sheeyit! I meant for this post to be AFTER my Ra Ka De Ka post. You know, the one where I wax nostalgic about my husband almost missing the birth of our child because he was eating at Carl's Junior.

I'm too lazy to undo my other posts and do this in order so this will have to do....

As you can see, TC and I were still on our coupon kick. Get used to it. We're going to be using coupons the whole damn year until they expire! (cue evil laughter here)

Tokidoki at Yogurtland and It's It from Vons!

We headed back towards the Vons parking lot where we left our cars earlier to the mercy of El Cajon Blvd. C was kind enough to drive us all over town that day.

Here is a painted greenbox on the corner of Montezuma Drive and College Avenue.

Chick Fil A & Tutti Frutti

A few weeks ago during the winter break, TC and I were doing errands and stopped by Chick Fil A for lunch and utilized a coupon that was burning a hole in my wallet.

It was a Buy One Get One Free (chicken sandwich). The cashier also told me that today's special was "Buy a Shake and Get Nuggets Free", so figured, "All right, what the hell".  Here is TC's chicken sandwich. It comes with pickles but you can put your own condiments which they supply in packet form.

This was mine with mayo and BBQ sauce and no pickles!

Notice anything? Turns out the cashier gave both of the chicken sandwiches for FREE. Oops on him. I was wondering why my total was so low. So I basically paid for the shake. I don't think he understood the concept of that coupon but if I ever get a chance to use my other one, I hope he's working that day, ha ha.

I also had a coupon for our favorite yogurt place, Tutti Frutti. This is near Achiote (not so good Mexican restaurant), In 'n Out and El Michoacana  taco shop (ugh) where I had bad service there last month.

The flat screen was showing the end credits of the American remake of "Shall We Dance"...
They were out of chocolate and I was kind bummed. This was TC's cup of course. She got about three
or four different fruit flavors (don't remember which ones) and added gummy bears and a few gummy worms. I noticed that the cups are also "holiday"-like.

Because chocolate wasn't there, I got taro, red velvet (it's hidden), and vanilla topped with my usual combination of chopped almonds and mini chips with chocolate sauce.

I had a nice conversation with the guy working there. He told me that a customer the other day was really angry because they were rotating their flavors and had temporarily pulled the peanut butter flavor. I joked with him that it was probably my husband (PB is Bert's fave flavor at this location). During that same transaction, a woman from the corporate office came in to drop off a late Christmas gift and took photos of his shop. That was pretty random. [Update - Tutti Frutti is now closed as of 5/2012]

At least I saved some bucks that day!

Tutti Frutti Yogurt

A few weeks ago, I had a Buy One Get One Free coupon burning a hole in my pocket that I wanted to use. Tutti Frutti Yogurt is located in the Otay Ranch neighborhood, specifically in the Albertson's shopping center which also houses In-n-Out Burger (check out my old post, "In-n-Out Urge" ), Achiote (see my shitty review here), and Oggi's (haven't been there since I don't really like sports bars). There's also supposed to be a new taco shop across from Tutti Frutti.

The coupons were: "Buy 1, Get 1 Free" and the other one was for 20% off your order. Since there were three of us, Bert and TC used the BOGO one and I used the 20%. They had about 10 stations...

They had some funky flavors like Taro...these were the more "normal" flavors like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. They also had a red velvet flavor, along with coconut, blueberry, orange sherbet,  cookies and creme and a few others I don't remember.Wait, one was called "Birthday Cake" but I didn't try it.

It's cheaper than Nuyo by a few cents; here it's 36 cents an ounce compared to 39 cents at Nuyo. Here's one of my old posts on Nuyo back in 2008 (Eastlake location)...

It's very candy colored in here - light and sherbetty and makes me want to fart rainbows and unicorns on a pogo stick. I love it! The ironic thing about this slogan is that the yogurt ceases to be all it describes once you put all the candy and sugary cereal toppings they offer. Not so healthy any more, ain't it?

Ooh, space age bubbly lights!  They also have a nice and clean bathroom in the back. Points right there. None of those dirty ass toilet rooms where you feel compelled to roll up your pant legs before sitting down on the throne. Well, this place is still new. Give it a few years, what with high school students coming here and making it a hangout, then maybe, just maybe the bathrooms will deteriorate to the level of public high schools and trucker rest stops. Until then, enjoy the feces free walls and urine-less floors!

I'm so predictable. I got my chocolate and vanilla yogurts with chopped almonds, mini chocolate chips (thank God it's not that carob swill) and mini mochi pieces. Undernearth all that is also a tiny smidgen of the red velvet flavor.

Here's the side of the cup for your viewing pleasure...

Anthing this violently pastel has got to be our daughter's cup. She got about 5 tiny portions of different flavors - orange sherbet, banana, green apple (ugh), coconut and one other flavor I don't remember. She HAD gummy worms on it but she ate them all by the time I took this photo. She also sprinkled a bit of coconut and mochi balls on this cold mess.

Bert is also predicable - peanut butter, cappucino (he likes almost anything coffee flavored) and that red velvet cake flavor. That night he favored the same toppings as me - chopped almonds and the mini chocolate chips. The red velvet flavor tasted kind of wierd to me - very artificial. It's not the same as eating an actual red velvet cake.

Thanks to the coupon, we saved about $4 between the 3 of us. While we were, the yogurt place was only staffed by one person, a young girl (maybe a late teen or early 20 year old) who was pretty nice and kept busy by cleaning and replenishing the toppings stations. She also asked folks if they wanted free tiny samples. Business came in waves - sometimes a couple of people would walk in while whole families of 4 or 5 would walk through.

Can't wait to try this place again. Coupon or not!

[Update - This place is now closed as of 5/2012. Boo.]

Progressive Lunch - Asia Cafe, Que Huong + Fruity Yogurt

[This lunch occurred last month...but I'm finally posting it now for your food porn pleasure!]

Last month, Bert and I did a progressive lunch with the very cool owner and creator of PNOY Apparel, his lovely fiancee and one of his associates. Check out his new collection, "The Truth Hurts" at his site. I have several of his shirts and they're always either conversation starters, headturners and attention getters. His site is  also one of my links for "Things I like and so should you!"  After talking about food one day, we decided to meet up for lunch during my Spring Break. Turns out none of them had ever had Lao food before, so of course we had to go here...

I love how they taped post it notes "add .50" or "add .75" to their menu instead of printing new ones. The first time we went to Asia Cafe in 2006, this would have been helpful because we didn't realize the menu prices were out of date. When we got the bill, it was higher than we'd calculated. Anyways, I thought this was funny

Since this was going to be a progressive lunch, we didn't plan to have a full on meal here. Just two items. The first was the Nem Khao, crunchy fried rice with fermented sour pork sausage, chopped peanuts, whole dried chili peppers, green onions and cilantro.

The Nem Khao is not on the menu. You have to ask for it by name. The rice is served with a plate of fresh lettuce and sprigs of cilantro. Needless to say, the Nem Khao was an immediate hit. There were no leftovers, put it that way.

The other item was the Lao Beef Jerky which we likened to Filipino tapa, but cut in thick strips. This was still smaller than the Cambodian beef jerky Bert and I had at Sophy's in Long Beach (see that post here). This beef jerky wasn't as "dry" and you could taste the delicious marinade throughout the meat.

As a snack on the way out, Bert bought a ziplock bag of fried pork ears!

Mmm! Tasty! Crack your fillings kind-a crunchy!

And we were off to our next destination. Exiting Market St. back onto the 805, we took the 15 to University and headed over to the neighborhood of City Heights.

Our next stop was Que Huong...

What luck! Jay, the cool guy who was there last time, was here today! He showed us some more "money origami" that his friend made. Last time it was a dragon. This time it was Buddha:

The same friend also made twin money dragons holding a ball. Pretty cool, eh!

Now, after we placed our orders, Jay came out with this complimentary Banh Xeo. He remembered me and Bert from our previous visit and apologized for not having made the rice crepe to high usual standards. Actually we couldn't tell the difference. He told us that the last time we were there, they were using a different rice flour and so he wasn't too happy with how it came out, so he comped us this, which was quite nice.

This is the rice porridge that came with the crepe. It was kind of like arroz caldo - very gingery.

Here is the Banana Blossom Salad with Chicken. This time, instead of plain shrimp chips, Jay served it with the toasted sesame rice paper. Everyone loved this!

We also got a large order of the Fish Sauce Chicken Wings served over a bed of lettuce and green onions with slice tomatoes. The footed dish of salt and black pepper also added another flavor dimension. This item was also a hit.

So here's the aftermath...

Next up was dessert at another Lao place, Sang Dao which was just one street on El Cajon Blvd.  Here we are passing Etna's and in the distance you can see Saigon Restaurant.

Next is Pho Ca Dao...behind that (not pictured) is World Market...

A couple of blocks later, on 54th and El Cajon, was Sang Dao. We wanted to have their sticky rice with mango and coconut milk for dessert.

And in the words of a disappointed and pissed off Filipino uncle, "Gah-dammit, sheeyit!" Sang Dao  was closed on Mondays. I should have checked first but oh well!

Since we'd already found parking in this hell hole of a parking lot, we wanted to just have dessert wihtin walking distance. We ended up going across the street to this yogurt shop called "Fruity Yogurt"...

They had the usual sweet and tart flavors as well as the regular and sugar free...

I was excited by their Taro flavored yogurt!

It was serve yourself and .39 an ounce. Of course, you can add more weight to your yogurt by pouring on extra calories in the guise of these "healthy" and "not so healthy" toppings. This was healthy since it was fruit...

Here's more "healthy" toppings...

And here's some of the junk...this was the candy part. They also had bins that had different kinds of chopped nutz.

I don't even remember whose this belonged to. Wait, it was the "associate's" cup 1. I think that's captain crunch and mochi balls on there.

This was mine and Bert's - Chocolate with coconut and underneath it is the taro flavor. I sprinkled on some sliced almonds (they didn't have "chopped" almonds) and mini mochi balls.

This yogurt was shared by the designer and his fiancee...I don't really remember the flavors but at this point, wtf!!!! She is rocking one of the new designs, which is pretty cool because it looks like a vintage print. It's a female warrior and the word "Malakas" means "Strong"!

It was a fun day with the progressive lunch...too bad about Sang Dao though. Everyone liked the different dishes at Asia Cafe and Que Huong. I thought it was cool that Jay remembered me too. On our way home, we passed by this place on the Northwest corner of 52nd and El Cajon, the Khmer Spirit Cambodia, Karaoke Lounge.

I dug up this mini review Khmer Spirit through and internet search and came up with this mini blurb from San Diego's City Beat:

The Enrique Experience

"Cruise El Cajon Boulevard enough, past the hookers and Cricket Wireless retailers, and you’ll stumble upon a magical land known as Khmer Spirit Karaoke Lounge. The place’s sheets-as-window-treatments and a lone cholo vigorously scrubbing his front bumper at the neighboring self-service car wash at 11 p.m. quickly set the scene. Inside, the repurposing of bed linens continues, as tables are covered with what appears to be remnants of old duvets—the fancy brocade kind you’d find at Ross.

Under a string of Christmas lights, a chanteuse’s wail—a cross between a dying baby dolphin and a Jihadist’s combat chant—was strong enough to overpower the police sirens outside. Donning Cindy Lauper-inspired garb, the would-be karaoke star delighted the crowd with a permanent cat-who-ate-the-canary grin. The bar’s dance protocol was something to behold: It started off with a rhythmic chain full of pomp and regalia that led to the pairing of couples, who would disperse after each song was over. I was mesmerized; then again, they would be, too, if they saw me bust out the Macarena at my cousin’s Quinceañera.

“Cambodian community in San Diego is small. It’s good we have place to go,” owner Peter let me know. He then took me upstairs to his apartment, where a girl in a Jabbawockeez T-shirt kindly offered me a beer.

I hit it off with a toothless man who was sitting next to me, courtesy of the universal thumbs-up sign (our only way of communicating) and later joined him in a room where a middle-aged woman rocking bangs so stiff you’d swear her kids pranked her by switching out her Vidal Sassoon product with Liquid Nails, was selling snacks. Bamboo rice, “pig fritter” and, yes, even balut, an egg with the almost fully developed fetus in it. [my notes - Hey, balut is Filipino!]“Try” he mumbled, lifting up the treat and putting me eye-to-eye with its contents. Brave as I am, I sadly gestured a thumbs-down. Flashbacks starring the poultry that inspired me in my youth—Big Bird, the San Diego Chicken and Talkatoo Cockatoo were too much to bear. To paraphrase the great Meatloaf: I would do anything for this column, but I won’t do that."
(article by Enrique Limon)

Last but not least, I had to get a photo of  the very nicely named Pho King!

I bet they get a lot of crank calls!